Update from Haiti

12 miles out from where this picture is taken there is an island of people in great need. I think I'll go out and see...

Sorry for my delay in posting. Until tonight I've not had internet access. This trip has been difficult but good. Difficult because of travel delays and hitches. Good because my sister Kathy is with me (her first trip to Haiti with her big bro). Difficult because it is ungodly hot (9:30 PM and 92 degrees). Good because important pieces of the child feeding program are falling into place. Difficult because I miss my wife, kids, and grandbaby (Sophie, 7 months old, apple of grandpa's eye). Good because it is good for me to leave comfort and ease for a bit and be reminded that comfort and ease are not really what life's all about.

After a day on Haiti's mainland, we journeyed the 12 miles out to La Gonave (calm seas, blistering sun), getting here mid afternoon today. I squeezed in a brief meeting with the schoolmaster of the school whose 1,000 children we hope to feed this upcoming school year. I will spend most of the morning at the school tomorrow (visiting many of the classrooms and exploring the school buildings and grounds). I'll post some pictures. After lunch I'll head over to the hospital.

I received news just today that the xray you all helped me raise money for will be flown from Fort Pierce, Florida to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Please pray for a quick (and inexpensive!) customs process. We are arranging to have xray tech personnel fly down to inservice the staff and give a refresher (continuing education) course on xray positioning techniques, etc.

The hospital remains a very difficult situation, but I am excited that very good things are happening, the most major being that an organization in Scotland has raised the funds necessary to replace (raze and re-build!) the condemned building.

More tomorrow.

Over My Head... Again

Three weeks. This has been the longest gap in blog-posting since I started it right after Haiti's earthquake. My bad. Just busyness, that's all. Blame busyness.

Even though this is the first post after a 3-week hiatus, I will be brief and to-the-point with my updates:

1. The xray equipment was shipped from the manufacturer in New York this week, and is enroute to Haiti.

2. Starfysh continues to wait for official word from the IRS on official non-profit designation. Even while we wait, we are growing, maturing. Web and print materials have been produced. God is bringing passionate and skilled and connected people to us. Initial projects are in place.

3. The first and most pressing need will be to get these school children fed. It is crazy and ambitious, I know, to think we can START a new organization with this huge endeavor. (Why didn't God show me a tiny little school to get our feet wet with?). But here we are. And there they are. Hungry.

4. I'll be in Haiti this week, spending time at the school and the hospital. I'll try to post something up most days, here and on our starfysh facebook page.

Please pray that God will show up, because I'm clearly over my head... again.

Steve

Sophie

I'd like to introduce you to the newest love of my life. Meet my granddaughter, Sophie.

In less than four months, a thousand eager, hungry kids will walk through the schoolyard gates for the first day of the Fall school term, likely not expecting to eat that day.

We want to surprise them...

72 cents will feed a hungry school child one hot, nutritious meal.

$15 will feed a hungry kid every school day for a month.

$180 will feed them for a year.

Please consider helping me... I can't do this alone.

Would you help me feed a thousand kids? AND...

Would you help me find people to help me feed a thousand kids?

Would you help me find people to find people to help me feed a thousand kids?

I've placed a fact sheet on the Starfysh.org site that you can print off and use.

Thanks folks

Steve

Rodgersia

This Rodgersia has taken quite a few years to take off in my garden. Worth the wait.

Rodgersia was named after Admiral Rodgers of the Pacific Expeditionary Fleet that discovered the species in the far east.

Bring it on Alex Trebek.

Lamium

Lamium (AKA deadnettle) is a fairly easy to grow. It's a plant that thrives in shade, something I have plenty of. I have several growing right next to the path. Thanks to Gail B. for giving me the heads up on this one and for giving me a start. (Remember with all pics on this site that you can click to zoom in for a closer look).

Note: this is not the kind of "nettle" (weed) that you get "nettles" from. Those kind of nettles have tiny irritating hairs on them... NOT fun to get into.

Shameless Audacity

This is a rare, through-the-woods sunset that we get to see from our deck every once in a blue moon.

I saw on the news last night where some group in Grand Rapids held a fundraising campaign to rescue several city swimming pools from shutting down this Summer due to cuts in the city budget. They raised almost $180,000 in a really short period of time. Which is great for the kids and families of our town. The guy they interviewed said that 80% of the donations that came in were under $100, which I thought was really great, because that tells me their fundraising success wasn't mainly because of a couple of gigantic gifts.

I was glad to see that news report, because I figured if one town can raise that much money in a week or two to keep 3 city pools open for 7 weeks this Summer, then we should be able to feed a 1000 famished school kids for a whole year.... all for about the same amount of money.

I was reading in Luke's gospel this week and ran across these words of Jesus:

Suppose you have a friend and you go to him at midnight and say, "Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him." And suppose the one inside answers, "Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can't get up and give you anything." I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

The passage goes on to tell of God's eager willingness to give Himself to folks, if they would just ask.

The phrase that stood out to me was "shameless audacity." Sometimes I think people must think to themselves that that Steve's got a lot of nerve asking for project donations all the time. To be honest with you, I think that about myself. I am nervous about what people must think.

For me, though, what compels me to swallow my pride and write a blog or drop a bunch of letters in the mail is sort of like the last minute desperation those city pool fundraisers felt. That is to say, it's now or never to make the ask.

I know... shameless. Audacious and shameless.

Out on a Limb

I visited this classroom during a recent visit to Haiti. This picture was taken in the early afternoon. These children had had nothing to eat yet that day. Same as always.

The next project need is significant and urgent and big. And, while I know I am way over my head on this, it occurs to me that I have sort of lived there, (way over my head, that is) for a while now. And, while my life would be much easier without all this Haiti hyper-involvement, I feel the need to press forward in this God-adventure. Because for all the second-guessing and sheer terror I've gone through these last five months, God has not failed to win the day. He has provided... every time.

The way I see it, to NOT move forward might be to risk NOT seeing a miracle that God really wants to do, if only someone is crazy enough to ask the mountain to move.

The way I see it, who ever said, "the safest place to be is in the center of God's will" is dead wrong. I mean, who says "safety" is what following God is all about? Heck, if I wanted to be safe, I wouldn't be going to Haiti every time I turn around. If I wanted to be safe, I certainly would not, at the age of 53, be going out on a limb by forming a non-profit organization. If I wanted to be safe, I'd choose smaller projects... safe projects... projects I could pay for myself if the funds didn't come in. And, dear friends, if I wanted to be safe, I certainly would not choose feeding one thousand children as my first feeding program project. I mean, that's just silly.

I have truly gone out on a limb. But friends, here's why...

On Monday, October 4, 2010, some one-thousand children will gather for the first day of school in one of the most desperately-poor places on this planet. And if we don't do something between now and then, these thousand kids will have nothing to eat. For the entire school year they will not eat. Simple as that.

And, simple as this....

72 cents would cover the cost of gas to drive to the grocery store. 72 cents would also cover the cost of one hot, nutritious meal for a hungry child in Haiti.

$15 would buy lunch for two at Applebee's. $15 would also feed a hungry Haitian child for an entire month.

$180 would buy a nice digital camera. $180 would also feed a child every school day for a whole year.

$720 is about what the average garage sale makes. And that's what it would cost to feed 1000 hungry kids on any particular school day in Haiti.

Now, to fully fund this project would require nearly $190,000, and I am fully aware that right now, unless I have some closet bazillionaires out there, my own personal sphere of friendships and acquaintances is probably not wide enough to get this gargantuan job done. That said, I am asking any of you who are touched by this need if you might consider a fundraising effort of your own to feed "x" number of kids. And to share this vision with yet others who might be inspired to raise funds to feed their own "x" number of kids.

Within the next couple of days, we will be adding to our site a downloadable project facts sheet that you can print off to use for your own fundraising purposes. If you want it sooner than that, contact me and I can email it to you.

One last request: I am collecting stories of all the different fundraising efforts going on and will post them on our website. Send me what you can: stories, pictures, and of course results of your efforts. It will be fun to see the different ways folks raise money for this good cause.

I am nervous.

Steve

The Paradox

This swivel-head fake owl is supposed to deter the woodpeckers from pecking at the cedar siding on my house. He's not very good at it. The flowers in the foreground are Weigelas.

Here is the paradox...

It is not as if our hearts are stone. We do hurt when others hurt and we cry when others cry. This is compassion, and most of us, in fact, have a good measure of it. But when the problems over which we grieve are large or complex, our measured response seems to lessen. Suffering, natural disasters, poverty, hunger, injustice... it's just too much! After all, what difference can one person make anyway? Seeing ourselves as tiny by comparison, we feel inadequate for the task of solving gargantuan problems and providing for overwhelming needs. The very enormity of the need becomes the very thing that paralyzes us from responding. We shift our attention away, thinking, even praying that someone more famous or with a bigger bankroll or with more connections will come along to help these particular starfish.

Furthermore, it is obvious that people want to, and are ready to do and to give and to help. But it's all so impersonal. We pick up a brochure or we see the need on TV. But, without a personal connection to those who challenge us to give, we decide that now is not quite the right time to get involved. What a sad disconnect: plenty of human compassion and ready resources, but a comparatively puny response to our confrontation with desperate human need.

But we all like the starfish story, don't we? It frees us from the burden of saving the world. The story resonates with what we all intuitively know to be true... that singlehandedly I cannot change the world, but I might be able to make a big difference for a tiny part of it. For a child or a village or an orphanage. If only someone would invite us for a stroll down the beach...

STARFYSH is your invitation. Would you join me for a walk down the beach?